A descendant of the Rev. John Henry Goetschius, one of the 41 original members of the Board of Trustees, Yakal-Kremski is one of several students assisting Thomas J. Frusciano, the university archivist, on the Queen’s Charter Project, an effort to explore the backgrounds of the men who came together to found Queen’s College. (A small exhibit on the Queen’s Charter Project is currently on view on the second floor of Winants Hall.) The project transports Yakal-Kremski back to a world where colonists were struggling for religious freedom, spurring a group of them to seek a charter “to plant a university or seminary for young men destined for study in the learned languages and liberal arts, and who are to be instructed in the philosophical sciences.”
On November 10, 1766—a day now commemorated as Charter Day at Rutgers—the first of two charters was granted for Queen’s College by William Franklin, provincial governor of New Jersey and son of Benjamin Franklin.
And now, years later, Yakal-Kremski and other student researchers pore over sources from Special Collections and University Archives in Alexander Library and other historical repositories, searching through church records and personal documents in an effort to understand the lives of the men who joined forces to found what is now a public research university with campuses in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick/Piscataway. “Why did these 41 all come together?” muses Yakal-Kremski, a history major who started working on the project as a first-year student. “What were their motivations? To be able to touch the same documents that people were touching over 200 years ago is amazing. It’s definitely a unique experience I would not have otherwise.”
Financial support for the project comes from interested alumni, coordinated through John Pearson, director of major gifts at the Rutgers University Foundation.
And if other students don’t necessarily have the same intimate connections to Rutgers’ past, then they do have the privilege—as do others, from faculty and staff to alumni and visitors to Rutgers—to experience the university’s history in countless other ways, whether by strolling around campus, taking a historic tour, or even exploring the extensive resources on the history of Rutgers and New Jersey at the library’s Special Collections and University Archives.
Want to know more about the history behind Rutgers? We have lots of ways to do just that. And so, step into history with Rutgers.
- Historical Tours
Take an hour-long tour of the Old Queen’s and Voorhees Mall areas of Rutgers’ New Brunswick/Piscataway Campus, learning about Rutgers traditions and architectural points of interest. - University Archives
Biographical sketches of Rutgers’ presidents, details on notable buildings, and other facts about Rutgers history - The Rutgers Oral History Archives
A project capturing the personal experiences of Rutgers graduates who served in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. - "Castles in the Air," from Rutgers Magazine
Learn about Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, the architect behind Kirkpatrick Chapel and other Rutgers buildings—as well as New York’s Plaza Hotel and Dakota Apartments. (He also happens to be the great-great-grandchild of Rutgers’ first president.) - "View from the Inside," from Rutgers Magazine
An interview with the late Richard P. McCormick, author of Rutgers: A Bicentennial History (Rutgers, 1966) and the father of President Richard L. McCormick, discussing the sweeping changes at the university since Rutgers became The State University of New Jersey.
